Truth, Tradition, And Beautiful Music

Wesley Hill has a thoughtful reflection up at First Things this morning, lamenting the fact that when it comes to confronting the Christian tradition and homosexuality, too many church people on both contending side fail to take the questions at the core of the dispute with appropriate seriousness. Excerpt:

I guess I just want to plead for a little more recognition of the difficulty and complexity of both “sides” of this debate among Christians. If I were advocating for unqualified blessing of same-sex unions in the church, I would hope that I’d have the humility and charity and intellectual honesty to grapple with Scripture and the church’s tradition in a way that didn’t dismiss it as simply “homophobic” or hopelessly benighted. And since I am advocating for adherence to the traditional Christian sexual ethic, I hope that I do so in a way that admits, “This is a hard teaching. I’m far from grasping its rationale fully myself. I still have a lot of questions. And I recognize that the church does a bad job, in many cases, of making it seem attractive and practicable and life-enhancing for gay Christians themselves. Until there are stronger practices of friendship and community and hospitality in the church, I feel an enormous amount of anguish and frustration when I tell young gay Christians that, yes, I do think, on the authority of Scripture, that God is asking you to live without gay sex. I cringe when I tell you that because, in our current climate, that often means living without deep intimacy.”

Agreed, on all of it. Speaking from the orthodox/traditionalist side, I think many of us hesitate to speak with full honesty about what we know we are asking of gay Christians, even if we would like to — this, because our opponents are so busy calling us bigots and crazy people that we fear, whether we are fully conscious of this or not, that to cede any ground is unwise. In other words, we are in such a defensive crouch that admitting to complexity and nuance is a sign of weakness. From my point of view, at least, most of the Christians on the other side proceed with a supremely confident self-righteousness about their position that they refuse to recognize the theological shakiness, or at least the utter novelty, in the sweep of Christian theology and tradition, of their claim. It’s as if they are terrified that to admit that they’re asking for — no, demanding — something unprecedented in 2000 years of Christian teaching and practice would make it less likely that they will get it.

Related to this attitude, Kevin D. Sullivan contends that the failure of catechesis (Catholic-speak for “religious instruction”) in contemporary America has left young Catholic adults unable to think or talk their way through issues like this. Excerpt:

I believe this mass failure in religious education has left young Catholics woefully unprepared for the spread of moral relativism and a “whatever makes me happy” attitude. Simultaneously, political and social issues have been allowed to take the place of the real substance of the Catholic faith found in the rich liturgy and the Sacraments. How can we expect a young Catholic to fully grasp Church teaching on contraception, abortion, and poverty if they do not understand basic beliefs like the Eucharist, the reception of the body and bloody of Christ; original sin, that mankind is inherently born with sin and will do wrong at times; or salvation, that we are perfected not in our life on earth but in heaven? How can we expect a young Catholic to find inspiration in their faith in a world of religious violence and suffering if they do not know the lives of the martyrs –who died not to spread dissent but were killed for bringing peace –and the role of the church in history?

Spot on — and not just for Catholics, but for nearly all American Christians. I am thinking this morning of a Protestant friend in his 20s who was surprised to learn some very basic theological facts about the faith he professes. I didn’t understand where he was coming from, until I discerned that his spiritual education and formation had been in a mainline church that taught “God is love” (as He certainly is) but very little else, and in a parachurch ministry that focused entirely on the emotional experience of Christianity. He has fallen away from the practice of his faith, as some Christians in their 20s do, but the thing I noticed from talking to him about all this is how completely unprepared he was by his catechesis — even, it appears from clues in our conversation, in the Christian home in which he was raised — to think with the mind of the Church, which is to say, in terms of Scripture and the Christian theological tradition. If he returns to church, I suspect it will be to a church that suits his emotional needs and political convictions (in terms of cultural politics, primarily), whether liberal or conservative. The question of truth won’t even come up, because truth is whatever feels right.

Note well I predict this even if my young friend ends up in a church that is more or less doctrinally conservative. Without a deeper understanding of the theological basics of Christianity, the roots will go very shallow. I think there is a lot of wisdom related to this question in Mark Oppenheimer’s essay about Judaism (his religion) as learned practice. Excerpts:

The basic problem is that for many people, Judaism used to be a native language. For many of them, it was a second language—after Russian, or Polish, or English, or whatever. But it was still spoken in their home, in one way or another. What’s more, because Jews were forced together by anti-Semitism, laws, or mere custom, Jews knew plenty of other Jews. Often, they knew other Jews almost exclusively. So, even if one was not from a very learned family, one still felt that a Passover Seder, or even a Simchat Torah parade, was familiar, friendly, native. Your family might go to synagogue only a few times a year, but when you went you saw friends, neighbors, relatives. Even if you didn’t understand the prayers or connect with any of it spiritually, you still felt more or less at home.

That was Judaism as a native language.

These days, except for tiny Jewish minorities in gentile lands, or for the Orthodox who live among other Orthodox, Judaism is not native to anybody. Even many Israelis are now estranged from, and don’t understand, Jewish religious practice. So, for most of the Jewish world, Judaism the religion is now a learned practice. It can still give great joy and meaning to one’s life, but most of us can never practice Judaism in the easy, unearned way that, say, I can celebrate the rituals of being American: the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Super Bowl parties.

So, if Judaism is no longer a native language for many Jews, what is it? I believe that Judaism is best thought of now as an art, or maybe a sport. Put in even simpler terms, it’s like playing guitar, or playing tennis.

That’s true of Christianity as well. Though you may balk at the simile to music and sport, Oppenheimer’s explanation makes sense. The broader argument here (one that applies to Christianity as well) is that knowledge of the core concepts of the religion are no longer widely shared. If you want to learn to think and live Jewishly, you have to work to master it by practicing, in the same way you would do so with music or sport, neither of which come naturally to anybody. As Oppenheimer goes on to explain, this is hard, and seems complicated at first. But the more you submit yourself to the tradition, the more you understand why it says the things it says, and prescribes the things it prescribes. From seven years of practicing Orthodox Christianity, which is deeply foreign to American sensibilities, I can testify to the accuracy of this. It’s only now — I mean, as in this year, after seven years of faithful practice — that it’s starting to cohere for me. And it’s only now that I understand at a profound level why maintaining liturgical tradition and other traditions within Orthodoxy is absolutely vital. We don’t make the tradition; the tradition makes us.

This is perhaps the most foreign thing Biblical religion of any sort claims in modernity: that we can’t make it up as we go along. I can easily understand why nonbelievers don’t share this worldview. But — going back to Wesley Hill’s point — it is really inexcusable for contemporary Christians to adopt this worldview. Similarly, just as liberal Christians are wrong to think and to act as if what came before has no claim on them, it is unwise and unrealistic for conservative Christians to assume that living out truth and tradition is easy in conditions of modernity.

We Christians find ourselves in a state in which our liberals want to let people sit down, pick up instruments, start playing, and call it beautiful music, no matter what it sounds like, and our conservative Christians want people to sit down, pick up instruments, start playing, and stand condemned for not being able to play beautiful music with ease.

It hardly needs saying that when it comes to religion American culture, like modernity, has an almost overwhelming bias towards the cacophonic. Conservative believers need to understand that this is the environment in which our children are being acculturated. If we want them to hang onto the faith, and not to be assimilated into total relativism and emotivism, we cannot be indifferent to their catechesis. But neither can we be indifferent to the great difficulties they face in receiving that teaching in this time and place.

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64 Responses to Truth, Tradition, And Beautiful Music

“True enough for Roman Catholicism, but it’s worth a reminder that many other Christian denominations don’t take Rome’s hard line on matters such as contraception or divorce.” -Engineer

While certain Protestant groups may not take Rome’s hard line, we can’t escape the fact that Paul’s view of marriage and family isn’t too different from Rome’s.

So, if your church looks the other way on premarital sex (which includes almost all conservative Protestant churches) and freely permits remarriage after divorce, then your church cannot with a straight face say that its opposition to SSM is rooted in Scripture.

Carl Trueman aptly noted last year that most Protestant opposition to SSM is rooted in bigotry. Once you start picking and choosing which of the Bible’s demands you’ll enforce, you lose the option of saying that you’re not a bigot.

To Rome’s credit, it can oppose SSM without being charged with bigotry. The same is not true for most evangelicals.

As I noted above, most conservative Christian churches (except Rome) are complicit in the departure from Scripture’s model of marriage and family. So, unless you’re Roman Catholic, your “our society” comment probably includes you. When was the last time your church excommunicated someone for remarrying following a divorce. (While Scripture permits divorce in certain circumstances, it clearly forbids remarriage following divorce–even when the preceding divorce was permissible.)

I think those of us who are gay or pro-gay need to really listen to what Rod is saying even if we don’t totally agree. I happen to think Rod is wrong on some issues concerning sexuality and I don’t doubt he would think the same way of me as well. But just because we might think the other side is mistaken doesn’t mean we should automatically discount their views, which is something we do way too easy.

Maybe what has been called “tradtional” sexuality has been around as long as we think. But it has had a profound impact on Christian faith and ethics. The change in Christian sexuality has been a mostly a good thing in my view. I’m not persecuted for being gay. I live in a state where I can wed my same sex partner. But all change is hard, especially for those who believed this was the way things were done.

When I was in the process of coming out, I had to do a lot of study into Scripture and Tradition to understand how one could be gay and Christian. I just couldn’t say it was okay because society said so.

I do think that when it comes to my fellow liberal compatriots on an issue like sexuality, too often I hear shallow things like “God is love” or “God is inclusive” which is true, but doesn’t really speak to the issue at hand. Conversely, many conservatives tend to focus on tradition and not see how tradition has to breathe in the present situation, not in the past. What do you say to a gay man or woman? Must they be alone and celibate for the rest of their lives?

David J Whyte, losing half your empire to Aryans would be considered quite a disaster even if you kept the other half, but within 2-3 centuries, MOST of the eastern empire was also lost, to Muslims aided by Jews who wanted to get back into Jerusalem. Contrary to popular imagery, most of the Muslims in Egypt are genetically Coptic, but found it convenient to convert, ditto for many ethnicities in Mesopotamia and Palestine. People can literally become the dominant culture, language, religion, as easily as they can form communities of resistance that lasts for generations. For most of those 1000 years you mention, Byzantium was a powerful city-state which sometimes controlled a bit of Anatolia and some of the Balkans, not much, because the Slavic invaders were not too subservient.

I’ll agree that having a standard, which is respected even by those who violate it, counts for something, and if doing the right thing was easy, no standard would bne necessary. The most dangerous sociopaths were never taught as a child, ‘No, you cannot just take anything you want without regard to everyone around you,’ because it literally does not compute for them that by doing what comes naturally to any animal, they are doing anything wrong or questionable.

Kudos to Hector on why its relevant that Jesus didn’t say anything about birth control. I was going to mention that Jesus did affirm the Ten Commandments, at least in passing, and contraception isn’t mentioned there, nor did he condemn the use of silphium. Darn, those people should have harvested the seeds.

I think there probably is something teleologically disordered about homosexuality. Sexual emotions exist because there are two sexes, and two sexes exist because that’s a form of reproduction superior to fission or budding. I also find plausible merit in the notion that the union of a man and a woman reunites the Adam, the image of God in which humanity was made, whereas uniting two of the same sex simply doesn’t.

However, I’m not sure that really matters with regard to the social status of two individuals of the same sex who, being born with a slightly different chemistry, are attracted to each other, not to the opposite sex. If they can live fulfilling lives with each other, it doesn’t exactly upset the entire teleology of the universe. In the next life, Jesus tells us, we will not marry or be given in marriage, so it doesn’t matter that a woman had three husbands on earth. I doubt if it will matter much that a a gay man had a male wife or husband either.

quote: “As I noted above, most conservative Christian churches (except Rome) are complicit in the departure from Scripture’s model of marriage and family. So, unless you’re Roman Catholic, your “our society” comment probably includes you. When was the last time your church excommunicated someone for remarrying following a divorce. (While Scripture permits divorce in certain circumstances, it clearly forbids remarriage following divorce–even when the preceding divorce was permissible.)”

My conservative (Reformed Baptist) church doesn’t allow divorce and remarriage. For example, it actually did excommunicate a woman for divorcing her husband about two years ago. This was done after an open discussion of the matter in the church.

I certainly grant your point that many “conservative” Protestant churches look the other way to sins such as fornication and divorce and re-marriage. I can’t blame liberals and gays for pointing out the hypocrisy in such behavior. And really, the epidemic of divorce and remarriage is what opened the door for SSM. Churches should have stood up against divorce and remarriage, along with the legal and moral monstrosity of “no fault divorce” much earlier. “No fault divorce” is much worse than SSM.

Luckily, some conservative Protestants are waking up to this problem, and important figures in the Baptist world such as John Piper, Al Mohler and Russell Moore have increasingly talked and written about it. I’m glad that my church has taken the stance that it has and hope that others follow. We can’t have an authentic Christian witness if we turn a blind eye to some sins, but not others.

“And to my gay Catholic brothers and sisters, especially those of you who embrace the challenge of celibacy, I repeat what I’ve said before here and elsewhere: tell us what you need.”

Erin, this made me tear up. Thank you. We will continue to disagree on the issue of celibacy and whether it is necessary. But this sincere question is exactly what needs to be asked, no matter your theological orientation.

As someone who isn’t Catholic or religiously observant, but, all the while, is living a celibate lifestyle, I find it somewhat annoying that whenever people speak of celibacy they either refer to it as some demanding challenge that is hard to fulfill, or some deep privation of a spiritual need.

Celibacy is easy, if you accept in your heart to do it. And it is just a matter of acceptance.

I personally feel a problem with our culture is that we scare people away from celibacy by over-emphasizing supposed challenges of not having sex and the supposed importance of sexual intimacy to living a fulfilling life.

These are more ideas people accept than truths of life.

That isn’t advice to a gay man, that’s advice to everyone, gay or straight.

Thanks for clarifying. I agree that many “Reformed” Baptist sects preach and practice a view of family life that is pretty close to what Scripture teaches. On the other hand, “Reformed” Baptists represent only a small fraction of Baptists.

I have a fair degree of respect for Al Mohler. He’s a fair and thoughtful man. Of course, Mohler is persona non grata in the SBC today because he had the courage to call out people who were falsely asserting that sexual orientation is voluntary.

The same can’t be said for Piper. I stopped paying attention to him when he proclaimed that the 2009 Minneapolis tornado was divine judgment directed at the attendees of the ELCA’s national convention. I see him as indistinguishable from Pat Robertson and Benny Hinn.

Re: we can’t escape the fact that Paul’s view of marriage and family isn’t too different from Rome’s.

Not so much with the modern Church’s view of marriage, which is much more positive and affirming than the grudging acceptance Paul have to marriage. The older tradition, in which marriage was a distant second to celibacy, was closer to Paul’s.

In regards to debates on divorce I suggest people remember that this is not just a modern difference among churches. The Eastern churches have always had a process for divorce and remarriage, based on the principle of economia– that we are inevitably sinful beings, hence some marriages will fail beyond rescue, and it is better for people to be (re)married than to live in sin, and for children to have step-parents than just one parent.

Celibacy is a rare chrism, and it is no more easy than the pillar sitting of St Simon. Some few among us are called to be the especial beloved of God, forsaking all others. I do not believe that celibacy should ever be forced on anyone; even God does not force himself on us. The vast majority of us are called not to be the especial lovers of God, but to be lovers of each other, and seeking to deny love to someone is the work of the Devil, full stop.
And that in brief is why I think the traditional treatment of gays is as wrong-headed– wicked even– as was the traditional treatment of the Jews.

“In regards to debates on divorce I suggest people remember that this is not just a modern difference among churches.” -JonF

Agreed. Very few Christian traditions have maintained the Bible’s approach to divorce and remarriage. Rome does so on paper, but Catholics who want to remarry just do so outside of the church.

My point, though, is that Christian practice on this issue represents a marked departure from what Scripture teaches. This presents a problem for those who are saying that they oppose SSM merely “because the Bible tells me so.” If such Christians can freely depart from the Bible’s teaching on divorce and remarriage, then why must they strictly abide by it on the question of SSM? In many churches, gay people are the only ones being asked to submit to the Bible’s standards. Straight people threw Paul out the window a long time ago, as evidenced by the widespread practice of premarital sex and remarriage after divorce in evangelical circles.

<i<The Catholic Church allows remarriage after divorce if there was an annullment.

The PRACTICE of anullment, at least in North America, is chasing rapidly after popular culture and civil law. Its another name for divorce, but because of the ancient formalities, can appear quite crude.

I think particularly of the man married in a Lutheran Church who was civilly divorced, fell in love with a Roman Catholic woman, and sought a Roman Catholic anullment of his Lutheran wedding so he could marry a Roman Catholic woman in the church.

The fact that he had to go through the entire procedure is evidence that, as Erin often points out, the RC church does consider a marriage performed in another church to be a valid marriage, albeit not a sacramental one. But it was ludicrous to see the implications of anullment (as distinguished from divorce), e.g. the young lady who was the offspring of the previous marriage asking, “does that make me illegitimate?”

Its a hypocritical word game when traditions are upheld in such a slippery manner.

“This is perhaps the most foreign thing Biblical religion of any sort claims in modernity: that we can’t make it up as we go along.”

Well, unless you’re a Protestant. Then you can pretty much do whatever you please because you, (yes, you!) can freely interpret the Bible without any theological training. Oh, thank you Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and the various princes who followed them.

Though, someone did bring up “there were lots of schismatics but people only talk about the Reformation because it was successful and long lasting and influential.” Well, yes, that’s the point. A successful, large scale schism that promoted the ability of the average person to freely interpret the Bible on their own had never happened before and yes, it is only important because it succeeded, because all those ones that did not succeed only have marginal, incredibly indirect influences on modern society (particularly, modern American society, which is largely Protestant).

Also, as Rod pointed out, the Reformation is the earliest common start date for the modern era (others include the period around Galileo and Descartes, 1648, the Enlightenment, or 1789, the latest possible one). The reason is, it’s a convenient date to mark changes that began before it and came to fruition after it. All such dates are just convenient, though there is some logic to it. The Reformation and Counter-Reformation facilitated and crushed changes that had been taking place in Late Medieval/Renaissance Europe and largely forms the backdrop for much of the history of the Early Modern Period, just as French Republicanism would (and does) largely color late modernity.

Also, re: Byzantium. While the Byzantines called themselves Roman, it’s foolish to call them Roman. Even (or especially) the Byzantines themselves recognized the changes that Constantine had made to the very nature of the Empire were extreme. The issue was that “Roman” carried with it political, cultural, and linguistic meanings, the latter two of which had been cast aside by the Byzantines pretty much from the start, or at very least from very early on.

On the other hand, Siarlys Jenkins is writing foolish things. The empire was already split politically before the Germanic folk did away with the Western half. And to say that Arabs conquered all of the empire is foolish – it wasn’t until 1070 (after Manzikert) that Anatolia was lost and it would be reconquered by Alexios Komnenos during the First Crusade. Most of Anatolia was, for at least 800 years after the fall of Rome, part of Byzantium.

The Balkans as well. Altaic and later Slavic incursions into the Balkans were often disastrous, but rarely lasted very long. And, even if you want to contend that the Balkans were often lost (which isn’t true) Greece was a near constant.

So, your glib interpretation of Byzantine history is nonsense. From Constantine to the start of the 13th century, Anatolia, Greece, and the Balkans were essential parts of the Empire that might have been lost for short periods, but were always reconquered. Only the Turks put an end to total control of Anatolia in the 11th century, but as late as the Fourth Crusade, the western half and northern coast was still Byzantine. In fact, Trebizond fell after Constantinople. Please don’t give false history lessons.